TLS Experiments

The mad
scientist in me just can't resist when given an artistic medium with so many
possibilities and undiscovered uses. The temptation to push the envelope to
find what Transparent Liquid Sculpey (TLS) can be used for, on, or
in is simply irresistible. This page will be updated every time I find something
new to try!!! And no telling what that may be because I have a bizarre sense
for creative genius!

Click on the thumbnail to get a closer view.

I
took some undiluted TLS (Transparent Liquid Sculpey) and
mixed some fabric paint into it to give some color. Then I drizzled
it onto the surface of a mirror and baked it at 300 degrees fahrenheidt
(149 celcius) for 15 minutes.

What
this did was make the TLS very bubbly! It's a really neat effect,
actually! For the life of me, I can't think of what else I would use
it for, though!.

Using
different colors of fabric paint, I mixed some blue and black to make
this practice stain glass effect. Then I used just a touch of yellow
and red fabric paints straight from the bottle onto the uncolored
TLS in the sun for highlights.

The
fabric paint once again seems to have made a lot of bubbles and colored
the highlights in the clear TLS rather poorly. However, read on to
the dipweeds and see how I may come to revise this theory.

I
dipped some grass and some dried flowers into undiluted TLS.

The
grass was drained and wiped against the lip of the TLS container and
then pinched to get off as much of the excess TLS as possible. There's
still a lot of TLS between the seeds in spite of my efforts. And bubbling.

I
didn't drain this weed. I just dipped it and baked it with the grass
at the same temperature as above.

This grass was dipped and not blotted before baking.

This
is a window cling I made using diluted TLS and oil paint for tinting.
(The black part of the body is Fimo Classic while the yellow is Sculpey
III.) I found the diluted TLS to be easier to move around and to pour.

As
a result of the dilute TLS in the butterfly experiment, I learned
the thinner the TLS the better it handles. So I thinned some wayy-y-y
down and then poured some of that onto this grass using an eyedropper.
I let it drain a bit and then placed it on the surface of this baked
bottle. Surprise! It came out very well and the grass was not delicate
anymore. While it cannot be manhandled, it can be touched without
damage.

What
I learned with the above five experiments was undiluted TLS is bubbly.
Thinned TLS gives you an easier medium to work with and really dilute
TLS still gives strength to the Dipweeds you choose to preserve. As
a conclusion of this, it seems possible that the fabric paints may NOT
have been the ones to cause the first two experiments to be so bubbly.
But I haven't followed up on that theory. You dilute the TLS until it's
about the consistency of milk, letting the Dipweed drain as much as
possible, blotting off any excess with facial tissue and then baking.

This
was a cyclamen flower in full bloom. I coated it with the very diluted
TLS and baked it at 300 degrees fahrenheidt (149 celcius) for 20 minutes.
It looks tremendously sad.

This
is what it looked like when I turned it over so I could see the face
of the flower. It's practically invisible behind the pooling of the
TLS.

This
is another cyclamen flower past the prime of full bloom. I covered
this one with the very diluted TLS and baked it with the other cyclamen
flower.This is the top of the flower. It, too, looks tremendously
sad.

This
is the bottom of the flower. It dried quite flat, but marred - not
maintaining anything close to its original beauty.

This
is a close up of the underside viewing the toasted petal and the pooled
TLS at the center of the flower.

What
I learned from these two is that dried flowers are preferrable to fresh
flowers. The water content in fresh flowers is too great for the TLS
to hold up against. The steam from the moisture causes petals to expand
or wilt leaving bubbles in the petals or wrinkles or charred spots.

I
happened to run across a plentiful supply (a long story, maybe another
day! or lifetime!) of beautiful bottle flies. You know, the iridescent green, blue,
copper and turquoise flies? They sparkle and shine so gloriously, I
thought for sure I could do SOMEthing with them. So I gathered up a
few of the dried carcasses, dipped them in TLS and baked them up (much
to my wife's horror since I use her oven!).

When
pulled out of the oven, the two dipped flies (on the right) were not
as shiny and are too small to sand and buff. Also too delicate, even
though they can now be handled without fear of breaking. The fly on
the left is unbaked for a comparison to how it should look. Also,
there was a considerable pool of the thinned TLS underneath each fly.
While the flies turned out less than optimum, I noticed the wings
turned out beautifully!

The
proclivity for pooling TLS, which follows the law of gravity with
a vengeance, can actually be made to work FOR me. Here I've cobbled
up a design for a wingrack with bug wings in mind. Two hershey kiss
sized blobs of clay with very thin wire strung between them and a
wire at the front of the "feet" should work nicely. Tiny
beads of clay along the upper wires would keep the wing(s) from slipping
sideways. Then, place the wing(s) with the arm section downward so
the TLS can pool into a nice foundation that can be used to attach
the wing to future projects!